the bark tree

Border width

A new spring project is underway: widening the narrow long border!

With a nifty new edging tool, I sliced through the surrounding lawn, adding about a foot of width.  This tool will also help keep the edges clean as the season progresses and the grass sneaks into the bed.

The newest wing of the border was made wider by an old fashioned shovel, prompting the purchase of the edge tool, which I've had my eye on anyway.

The remaining grass is then ripped out by hand and dumped into the overloaded compost heap. Organic matter of all sorts will be added later.

Little guy likes to "help" by sitting in my lap while I'm tearing out lawn.

One gallon gardening continues

According to my loose plan mentioned earlier, this fall I dug out the beds to connect the small shrubs planted in spring, thus extending the long border and ever so slowly reducing the giant lawn.

Both budgetary constraints and summer's high temperatures, which hit just after the first shrubs were planted, delayed this project.  Though still very low and narrow, the connected bed appears more deliberate than the poor little shrubs all alone in the lawn.

One-gallon-gardening has its positive side.  To watch plants grow from small babies into large vigorous shrubs is satisfying.

Though we all love instant gratification, I appreciate the beauty in a small new planting, especially while simultaneously imagining its future glory.

They grow quicker than you think!

A one gallon cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) planted last fall is gorgeous this year.

Our tiny bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) is slow growing, but still useable for cooking at this size.

I'm looking forward to future comparison shots of this beauty berry (Callicarpa americana), which is currently lost in a bed of iris and leaves.

Pittosporum 'Wheeler's Dwarf,' planted early spring, sent out lots of new growth this fall. 

The practice of gardening regularly teaches patience, delayed gratification, and humility.

4 inch gardening

Much like one gallon gardening, 4 inch gardening is based on budgetary constraints.

To maximize my precious garden dollars, I often buy 4 inch annuals that have the potential to drop seeds and sow a new crop for me next year like this lovely (Linaria maroccana), a wildflower also known as Moroccan toadflax or mini snapdragons.  I like how it looks next to my 'Red Sails' lettuce, a 4 inch vegetable transplant.

Just as some folks grow things they remember from their grandmother's garden, I love to grow plants that I learned about at Wave Hill, the beautiful public garden where I used to work.  There, we had a sweet little self-sowing white and yellow (Linaria vulgaris) known by the common name: butter and eggs!

Bluebonnets (Lupinus texinsis), notoriously difficult to start from seed, are available in 4 inch pots in fall at NHG.  For a little over a buck per plant, I get lovely foliage and the state flower of Texas blooming in spring.  At that point, I'm satisfied, but if it also throws some seed around and reappears in the future, I'd be thrilled.

Notice in the upper background of this shot, baby seedlings of another wonderful Wave Hill plant, Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damescena) dropped at random by a plant orginially purchased in a 4 inch container last spring.  Talk about getting your money's worth!

Zinnia 'Profusion Orange' planted in early summer, sprawled out to beautify a large area, while harmonizing with copper plant (Acalypha sp.), orange Wallflower (Erysimum sp.) and Dinosaur kale (Brassica oleracea).  There is even a little Salvia leucantha 'Midnight' sticking up above the kale on the left.  You guessed it!  All grown from 4 inch.

Zinnia linearis was also gorgeous from June until December.

Sometimes a perennial like this Salvia farinacea 'Victoria', is sold as a 4 inch annual due to it's dwarf size which groups well with other bedding plants. 

It blooms continuously and looks pretty along with other blues planted in the fall, but it also returns from the roots each year. A bargain hunter's dream!

Many people just use 4 inch material for color. Ornamental cabbage grow quickly if you plant them in early fall. Pentas complemented them until a freeze in December. Now rosy wine colored violas maintain a bit of a pink color scheme in front of my flowering quince shrub.

These orange violas attempt to blend in my new pink (not apricot), Apricot Drift Rose, an impulse purchase which looked more peachy in the garden center.  Silver accent plants like Dusty Miller (Senecio bicolor subsp. cineraria) 'New Look' help too and will grow fat and lovely with time.

Of course you can start groundcover from 4 inch pots.  When folks at NHG ask me — how many do I need?  I say that it depends on your need for instant gratification.  It takes most groundcover about 3 years to really establish and begin expanding.

Iceland poppies (Papaver nudicale) get planted in my garden as soon as they arrive in stock, usually in October.  They live through our winter blooming occasionally, but the real show is in spring.  I love poppies so much, I don't care that these don't perennialize or sow themselves.  I must have poppies!  

Less is more

Rather than clearing everything and starting from scratch, my garden design approach typically begins with filling in gaps.  After a time, I start to see what can be eliminated. Having spent my adult life as a renter, I am probably more hesistant about removal than an owner might be, but it's important to take some time to get to know your existing landscape.

We moved into our house a little over year ago in September. This fall we took out two of the four Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) that were all jumbled up together in the long border.  The result is more spacious and less colorful.  We took out the two pink flowering ones, that might've planted themselves in the first place, leaving the whites.

The long hot summer was hard on all of them so I'm hoping that less competition will help the remaining two.

Turk's cap and design basics

Turk's cap (Malvaviscus drummondii 'Pam Puryear') was one of the first items I planted at our house when we moved in around this time last year.

Many Texans are familiar with the red version, but the pink flowers provide a lovely contrast to our house's blue-green trim.

Blooming happily through summer and fall, it tolerates the morning shade and the scorching afternoon sun that this location dictates.

Through our living room window, we enjoyed watching hummingbirds visit the flowers during the miserable summer when we spent much of our time indoors.

Since it works so well in difficult locations like I described, I somewhat randomly added another on the side of the house in spring.

With my background in art, I'm ashamed at how long it takes for me to grasp and utilize basic design concepts, such as repetition. 

This fall, finally realizing that the lovely effects of this plant would have more impact if repeated all along the front of the house, I added another in this bed, one on the other side and one near a window in back.

In another design blunder, I had orignally placed this Chinese fringe flower (Loropetulum chinense 'Plum Delight') on the other side of the walk where I immediately feared it getting too large.

It's possible that it would've never occured to me to move it to the giant gap on this side unless my dear husband hadn't suggested it!  Thank you, Brandon.

One gallon gardening

Primarily due to financial constraints, I purchase most of my plants in the least expensive size. Sometimes I start with perennials in a 4-inch pot or shrubs in a little container called a "one gallon."

This creates a landscape design challenge: one must imagine what the tiny plant might look like if it manages to reach full size and of course, patiently wait for it to grow.

Since I began working on this garden last October, I've been slowly extending the long border beside my neighbor's driveway.  I had dug it out to this point (and also moved the dug up pieces of turf to fill in the patchy back yard lawn).

My niece Arden helped me plant the little shrubs in late May: Grayleaf Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster glaucophyllus), Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundiflora), and Texas sage (Leucophyllum frutescens 'Desperado').

Later, I extended the border to include the Texas sage.

The plan is to slowy extend the border in a curve along the edge of the lawn, creating an enclosure with low to medium sized shrubs and perennials which will partially obscure our view of the road.

Front yard progress

The front yard is slowly coming along.  The weather has been more or less wonderful since the beginning of March.  We've had lots of warm, beautiful days — perfect for working outside.

The west-side bed has mostly pinks and dark foliaged plants, though, I added orange violas in winter when most everything had gone out of bloom.  Our house faces northwest with a few trees in my neighbor's yard partly blocking the afternoon sun so I've spent the past few months trying to learn how much sun the two front areas receive... it's rather patchy.

A little section of the east-side bed sticks out to receive more sun so I immediately planted my favorite flower — poppies — in that spot.

They bloomed a bit in fall, quietly withstood our harsh winter and were lovely the past two months.  We can see them from inside our bedroom window and they still have new buds.

In the same bed is an overgrown holly which I trimmed up to remove a bunch of dead wood and previously butchered branches.  It's still pretty much a meatball shape and out of scale, but since we are renters, I am hesitant to chop it down just yet. 

Attempting to soften the corner and lower branches, I planted liriope (L. muscari varigata/gigantea) underneath.

Though I certainly could've done a more thorough prep, the sunny front yard border has been cleaned up to the extent that I've been forging ahead with new plantings.

The oldest and therefore largest is Centaurea cineraria 'Colchester White,' which I stuffed into a bare spot last fall before ever removing any weeds.  I like how the silver leaves look with the trunks of the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus).

Wave Hill has a large collection of salvias and I grew very fond of them while working there.  Beautiful blue Salvia farinacea 'Henry Duelberg' was discovered by Greg Grant in a Texas cemetary thriving without special care.

In the forefront of this photo is another blue mealy cup sage. Salvia farinacea 'Victoria' is a dwarf form staying under twelve inches.  It's sold as a bedding annual, but it returned where I planted it in my mothers garden last spring.  You can also see blue fescue and love in a mist (Nigella damescena).

Salvia. longispicata x farinacea 'Mystic Spires Blue' crosses another favorite salvia of mine from Wave Hill, 'Indigo Spires' with a dwarf form to make a shorter, sturdier plant with a gorgeous deep blue flower.

Lamb's ear (Stachys byzantia 'Helen Von Stein') is planted on the edge of the bed anticipating that it will spread and widen the border.  More to come!

Hydrangea bed

Just outside our back door was a muddy area with no plants.  I covered it with leaves for the winter.

The soil there was compacted and held water so I knew I have some work to do.

Loosening the old soil, I added expanded shale, and acidified compost as preparation for a hydrangea.

The new planting has impatiens, holly ferns (Cyrtomium falcatum), a dwarf pittosporum (P. tobira 'Wheeler's Dwarf), Mahonia fortunii, Hosta 'Summer Music,'  lamium (L. maculatum 'Beacon Silver'), one little painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum)...

... and a lovely silver blue variegated hydrangea (H. macrophylla 'Mariesii Variegata')! 

August says: It looks like broccoli.

Our new house!

Allow me to catch you up... It has been awhile since I posted.

September 2010 we moved out of my mother's house into our own place.  A new gardening adventure begins!

With boxes yet to unpack, I immediately started work on the flower beds.  This dark foliaged evergreen is Chinese fringe flower (Loropetulum chinense 'Plum Delight').  Hopefully, it won't eventually seem too monstrously large.  I perhaps should have held out for the more compact variety — 'Purple Diamond,' which is more expensive and wasn't in stock at the time, but I couldn't wait.  I think I have the space for it to get to mature size (6-8 feet), but we'll see.

Our landlord grew up in this house and his garden-loving mother lived here in until she died so there are some nice things already here like a flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.) which looks like sticks here. Adding evergreen plants for winter interest seems like the best way to begin.  3 little boxwoods (Buxus microphylla 'Baby Gem') will stay small and tolerate this somewhat shady north-facing bed.

The ugly black plastic cover of our water meter box was in plain view in the bed by the front door.  I used this cement tile to cover it. Still not happy about the faucet in the same place, but I'll have to live with it until I come up with a solution.

On the other side of the walk is a big old holly, (Ilex sp.) rounded off into the typical suburban meatball shape.  I'm guessing maybe 'Burford' or 'Nelly Stevens,' both of which get much too large for this spot by the door.  I would love to take it out, but that's a major project. I'm going to try cutting out some of the lower branches to see if I can make it look more natural and then planting underneath it.

Pansies bloom through the winter here so I planted a few along with some Iceland poppies (Papaver nudicaule 'Champagne Bubbles').

My father chipped up some cedar branches which I used as a mulch in this bed.  I'm adding any and every kind of organic matter I can to these beds to slowly improve the gummy clay soil.

Our landlord also had this nifty old reel mower in the garage.  We mowed over piles of leaves on the lawn to chop them up and raked that back on the beds for the winter.

This long border is full of weedy trees (self sown elms, hackberries, oaks, privets and honeysuckle) which I spent some time cutting down and attempting to kill with a stump killer.  It's not an organic method, but the chemical is targeted only on these specific stumps so I can clear them out to plant some flowering shrubs, perennials and maybe even a few vegetables in spring.

Again, adding evergreens and extending this border, I planted this cherry laurel (Prunus caroliniana).

This is only the front yard. Unlike our little 360 square foot garden in Brooklyn, which was all contained in a little fence there are possibilities (and messes to clean up) on every side of this house.  There is lots of work to do, but I think we are in a very good place.

February 18th, 2011 marked my 4 year blog-iversary!  Thanks for tolerating my infrequent posts!

Mom's house

August stays with my mother one day each week.  Here are a few of the things I planted at her house while we lived there which were still thriving until the winter frost.  Some folks might poo-poo annuals, but these little star zinnias (Zinnia linearis) looked wonderful all summer/fall and even survived a tree falling on them!

Texas Tarragon, a.k.a. Mexican Mint Marigold (Tagetes lucida) blooms prolifically in the fall. The leaves have a robust anise/licorice-like aroma.  This clump started as two little 4-inch plants in springtime.

Alongside more yellow star zinnias, coreopsis and guara they were part of what I'm now calling a "yellow border" which I began along her ligustrum hedge.  I'll add a few more this year to make it look a bit more deliberate.

 

My nephew also has a day with Grandmom each week which sometimes coincides with ours.

He and Augie had a big day pushing brooms around.

Filling the gaps

 

While we are staying with my mother in the house I grew up in, I've been working on the yard.  The first thing I did was trim up these two crepe myrtles that I planted back in the early 90s.  They were supposed to be dwarfs and stay somewhat shrubby, but they appear to be headed toward full size trees.  One was moved when they added wheelchair accessible sidewalk corners and I'm not particularly happy with the placement.  Not sure what exactly, but I'm considering adding some shrubs near them.

 

Next I planted a little oak leaf hydrangea in a bare spot near the garage where a hackberry tree once stood.  My dad laid out this brick patio himself back in the 70s. 
 

 

We used to have a wood fence behind where I planted this little fig tree — a cultivar called 'Celeste.'  When the fence got terribly old and rotten, Mom just had it taken down, which made our backyard visible from the street.  It's a surprising improvement and eventually the fig will provide a little natural screening.

 

It already has several fruits on it!

 

Next I began to work on gaps in the flower beds.

 

Mother has a weird way of expressing dislike towards her shrubs.  She decided this cherry laurel (Prunus caroliniana) was "out of bounds" and started hacking it up leaving stumps protruding from all sides.  Every time she passes she rips off another small section by hand.  Looks weird, doesn't it?

 

I cleaned it up a little and put in artemisia 'Powis Castle,'  lemon balm, golden sage, blackfoot daisies, moss rose and sedum 'Autumn Joy' below.  Later, thinking it looked too sparse and green, I added gomphrena 'Strawberry fields,' which I remember fondly from when my friend Gelene grew it from seed at Wave Hill. Along with plenty of organic fertilizer, I also dumped in a big bag of cotton burr compost to amend her cement-like clay soil.

  

There are two other cherry laurel shrubs which have also been hacked to heck.  I'm planning on removing this one here on the left.  Our friend Carlos works for a Dallas landscaping company and has plenty of experience tearing out old shrubs so he offered to assist me.  Then I'll have a whole corner to fill in next to her Ligustrum hedge.

 

Below the hedge there is a strip of lovely yellow Iris which bloomed beautifully this spring.  I decided to fill the gaps with some other perennials using a color scheme of yellow, white and a little blue.

'Stella D' Oro' daylilies and Mexican Mint Marigold (Tagetes lucida).

Candytuft (Iberis sempervirens), yellow columbine (Aquilegia hinckleyana), and Salvia farinacea 'Victoria Blue.'

My nephew Ray helped me plant three large elephant ear bulbs which are coming up nicely.

Near the front sidewalk corner there is a large patch of various ground covers.  I added three variegated liriope and some star zinnias to brighten up the edge.

In this shaded corner near the hose, I added some caladiums.  I probably should've gone with white and green to better match the varigated pittosporum, but I couldn't resist the cultivar called 'Carolyn Wharton.'  I have plans to place another dwarf pittosporum called 'Mojo' in the corner in front of the boxwood.

Another gap gets some hot afternoon sun so I used Salvia greggi 'Violet,' Nepeta 'Walker's Low,' mexican heather and lavender periwinkles.

 

Had to have a few containers on the porch.  Obviously I'm staying busy here and making good use of my employee discount at North Haven Gardens where I am a garden advisor. 

 

Here's my little garden helper, August who loves to be outside and eat dirt.

A big winter storm left a large tree leaning against the house so we had it taken down just after we arrived in Texas.  I'm pleased that they left this lovely stump.

Living far away in NYC, I longed for some time to do these kind of small improvements on the yards of my family. Soon I'll be working on my father's and sisters'.

Alter-Meeker garden

My dear friend Johnette has been working on adding perennials to the large garden bed in front of her house.

 

A big winter snowstorm tore up a large yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) that was shading this side of the bed.  It looked horrible so they had it removed, creating a new area with more sun.

She got all new soil with compost as well as mulch in bulk.

 

I'm watching with interest to see how her "Endless Summer" blue hydrangea will perform. So far it looks beautiful.

 

We house and cat-sat for them while they were on vacation and I put a few annuals in pots for them.  They looked a little skimpier that I hoped initially, but they'll fill out.

Fall plantings

You might remember back last winter when I was drooling over catalog photos of a Physocarpus shrub called 'Coppertina.'  At that point, I thought it might eventually get too large and I chose a Leycesteria instead.  But then I learned that we had one growing at work.  We took cuttings of it and now I have my own tiny plant for free!

 

Another previous lament was that my neighbor's Salvia was prettier than mine.  I have now added the perennial Salvia 'Blue Hill' to my garden to complement the lighter one I have already.

Tree stump undermines garden beauty

When you look at my garden, you don't especially notice the ugly, dead stump in the upper right corner of this overview photo. 

But there it stands in plain view, undermining my efforts to distract from it. A battle scar in the sometimes ruthless process that is gardening, the stump, which straddles the fence between mine and our neighbor's gardens was brutally dead-headed several summers ago with the idea of eliminating the encroaching shade it was unhappily providing.

Without success, I have tried last year and again this year to treat the stump as a trellis for growing annual vines.  The little scraggly mess in the photo on the left, is the miserable attempt I made this spring to grow sweet peas (Lathrus sps.) in several spots at the base of the stump.  Though surprisingly still alive with a few pathetic blooms, this hardly counts as coverage.

On the right I have just planted a little brown eyed susan vine (Thunbergia 'Blushing Susie') on my neighbor's side of the fence, since my side is mostly stump.  We'll see if it manages to provide any interest.  Next year I must find a rampant clematis to smother this garden nuisance.

East side progress

The east side of my garden is coming along slowly, but it's showing definite improvement from the early spring when I got the idea to redesign it.

There are quite a few new plantings on this side, along with some annuals coming in from seed, but all are quite small.  We've had a chilly May which slowed everything, but now with the weather warming, we should see some good growth in the next month.  Here are close ups of several things I've planted recently:

Dark leafed Spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Efanthia') left, gets bright yellow blooms. I've already shown you my Leycesteria formosa 'Golden Lanterns' which I would love to see bloom this year.

Creeping juniper stays low in front and Salvia guarantica 'Costa Rican Blue' gets tall in autumn.

This Asiatic lily called 'Orange Pixie' is lovely up close, but like the other items, if you step back and see it next to the fading Crown Imperial, it's just another new planting waiting to grow in and make sense in the larger picture.

Castor Bean plant (Ricinus communis) just emerging from seed, was a tall, dramatic favorite in another area last year and sedum 'Matrona' is reliable filler.

My friend, Gelene gave me this little Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis 'Globosa').  Another salvia, 'Swan's Magenta' matches the sweet alyssum along the edge of the path.

West side progress and nostalgia

The west side of my garden, aside from a few holes, is looking more or less stuffed by late May.  I'm always amazed at how impossible it is for me to believe that things I plant will ever grow to full size.



In particular, my oak leaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia) and spirea 'Magic Carpet' shrubs have quadrupled in size. Both were planted quite small and now command sizable chunks of my tiny garden.  I'm going to indulge in a little nostalgia and show you photos of my babies when they were ltitle. 



In spring of 2004, I planted the spirea on the east side all by itself, before realizing a year later that it would work better in its current position as the springtime star of the west side. (Don't ask me what I was doing with that ugly cedar mulch).



For something like $1.50, I won the oak leaf hydrangea on an Ebay auction in fall 2004.  I got what I paid for – it was a leafless stick with a tiny bit of roots.  After the winter, I was surprised when it leafed out, appearing as you see here on the left in 2005 and then in 2006 on the right.  I never dreamed it would be this large in 2008.





Here is the west side in June of 2004.  Since then I have purchased, randomly acquired, rearranged, killed and banished so many different plants!  Seeing progress through these photos helps me to be patient with things I am planting now.

Neighborly project

My neighbor, Paul and I have begun taking care of another neighbor's yard.  As you can see, it's quite overgrown and filled with weeds like mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), spiderwort (Tradescantia sp.),  wild onions (Allium sp.), and some opposite-leaved thing I don't know, which spreads by runners and drips a milky sap when broken.

Paul, who lives next door to this yard, asked Bobby, the owner, if we might try and improve his place this year. He has been doing all the work so far, since I just finished a long stint at Wave Hill over the Memorial day weekend.  I'll update soon with some current photos.

Magnolia cottage

Last weekend we visited our friends in Garrison, NY, who have a magnificent garden they've been working on together for 10 years.



Marilyn, who works with me at Wave Hill, designs and maintains the garden plantings and Eric creates the rock walls and pathways.





This was our first time to see the garden in it's springtime peak, which in zone 5, is a little later than ours in Brooklyn.





It's always an inspiration to visit this lovely oasis and a pleasure to spend time with our friends.

Artist's garden

While looking for information about Amy Stewart's lecture at the Hort Society of NY, I noticed that an artist exhibiting there was also opening his garden to the public. He happened to live in our neighborhood so I was quite curious to see it.

Ricci Albenda's garden was a beautiful surprise. It's filled with woodland ephemerals and exotic delights.

He created the paths himself with bricks and chunks of concrete.

Ricci served a spread of snacks and champagne mimosas while we chatted with other guests. I met Alex Feleppa, the Director of Horticulture at the Hort Society of NY (whose sunglasses are in the photo, left) and we spent a long while with Ricci discussing the myriad of plants he has stuffed into this tiny garden. Brandon had actually met Ricci, as well as some of the other guests, before in art circles so we were in good company.

We truly enjoyed meeting this wonderful host!

Garden imaging

Planning for the garden this year, I have big changes in mind. I've made a monumental (somewhat painful, yet) exciting decision: to quit growing vegetables in my tiny space.
There: I said it.

Growing vegetables is such a virtuous activity that I feel slightly guilty giving it up to grow more pretty things. On the other hand, I'm terribly excited about the possibility of space for new ornamental plants! I believe this new plan will make a more unified garden.

Using photoshop to help imagine what some new foundation-plant purchases might look like, I've also spent lots of time studying books and websites trying to decide what plants will work best. I have in mind 3 woody items: 1 columnar juniper and two shrubs that offer at least 2 seasons of interest.

First, I fell in love with a new Physocarpus cultivar, 'Coppertina' (left) and also liked 'Centerglow.' Then I learned that both of these grow 8-10 feet high AND wide in 3-4 years which is much too large and vigorous for my space. The less inspiring 'Summerwine' (right) is supposed to stay within 6 feet, but I found some rumors that it also can get much larger than expected.

Look how nice the P. 'Coppertina' would have looked if only it would behave to my specifications and stay small!

Next, I began swooning over a shrub I had never encountered previously, Leycesteria formosa 'Golden Lanterns,' which is a bright leafed cultivar which looks mighty pretty. It's supposedly hardy to zone 7 which I am in, but they say it can sometimes die back to the ground in cold climates, behaving more like a perennial. I think I can live with that. Look at those crazy blooms!

This is how it might look along with a variegated Abelia I am also eyeing. I'm still contemplating whether each item is right. Don't get me started on roses. I'll save them for another post. And clematis...

Brandon is not particularly pleased with this decision and we will most certainly miss growing tomatoes, but there were too many posts last year (not to mention my unpublished garden-journal entries) where I expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the work of vegetable growing. I like the end product, but I tend to procrastinate with the planning and execution and I hate having half of my tiny garden bare all winter.

Until I have more space, I have resolved to shop more often for local vegetables and to subscribe again to the CSA we enjoyed last year.